Beau Elliot
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There are some mysteries of human life that will probably never be solved, even if you have a college degree.

Which is not to say that a college degree, or two or three, is an impediment to learning. Just look at Donald Trump.

Please. So the rest of us don’t have to anymore.

But enough of fun and jangles, Bo. To the more-human mysteries:

How come, if Joni Ernst castrated all those hogs, we still have all these pigs running around?

If we had a cowboy poet or cowgirl poet, would he or she be the Poet Lariat?

(Well, OK; here’s another mystery. I came up with “Poet Lariat” on my own one night with only my old pal Jack Daniel’s for company. Well, as most cowboy stories go, that’s not quite true, though it makes for a better story. I haven’t seen my old friend Jack for some decades now; I wonder how he’s doing. I came up with “Poet Lariat” with my new friend Amp Energy Passion Fruit. That doesn’t sound very cowboy, does it? I mean, real cowboys don’t horse around with energy drinks, do they? They just drink oil right out of the ground.

(But “Poet Lariat” was such an easy pun, I figured someone must have come up with it before me. [Try punning on Kierkegaard; I have. No fair taking more than a second.] So a Google search revealed that Clark Crouch has a website called Poet Lariat, complete with verse to match, or to tie down, one of which disputes that global climate change has ever occurred, because, damn, it keeps getting cold in winter. He rhymes it better than I do.)

Well, one mystery solved. And here I thought Jim Galvin should be Poet Lariat. At least he writes excellent poetry.

Then there’s this mystery: In what state would 10 African-American women be tossed off a train for laughing, perhaps loudly? I guess on the street you call that guilty of laughing while black.

Why, that state would be dear, liberal California. When did California join the Confederacy? you wonder. Hah. As John Kennedy Toole pointed out, the Confederacy of Dunces is everywhere.

As the story goes, the 10 (or 12; don’t try counting this at home) women were members of a book club — you know, one of those ever-dangerous book clubs — taking a wine-train tour in the Napa Valley. They were approached by a white woman (stern, prim, middle-age, just going by a photo of her) who told the group members they were laughing loudly. I guess you could call that having fun while black.

One of the group members, just going by the photo, looked to be about 70, with white hair, glasses, and perhaps standing 5-1 or 5-2. You know the type — a real troublemaker.

At the next stop, the book-club members were escorted off the train. Hard to discern if they were being targeted because they were African Americans or book-club members. Want to make a guess?

I cheated; I already guessed.

Book clubs ought to be banned.